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'Convertible' is better still, a free-wheeling strummer propelled by warm spurts of Hammond organ and a cheeky central image: "Yeah, I'm still with her/But I guess I'm always convertible...". It's good to see Gedge playing potential adulterer for once, rather than impaling himself on yet another bizarre love triangle. Stephen Dalton |
Mini
New Musical Express 20 January 1996
THE WEDDING PRESENT
Mini
(Cooking Vinyl/LP/CD)
ON RADIO recently, David Gedge claimed that the most hurtful press comment he'd ever read about himself was that he had hairy ears. Well, Dave's clearly not much of a reading man, because The Wedding Present have been all-purpose indie punchbags for many years now. Dismissed as C86 throwbacks at the height of baggy, mocked for being grunge before their time, scorned for still being grunge after everyone else, dropped by RCA for having too many hit singles - the Weddoes haven't had a lucky decade so far.
Which is a tad unfair, as Gedge's conversational style and downbeat Yorkshire romanticism could well be the missing link between Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker. Certainly his lovelorn early lyrics always had a proto-Pulp bent.
The good news is that there's a brace of such heartbreakers on this odd little automobile-themed comeback album. 'Love Machine' is vintage Gedge: a delicate melody, a bruised sentiment and a gruff sob of a vocal, all shackled to great gnarly clumps of guitar and showered with the ashes of a burnt-out love affair.